GM’s Barra highest paid in Detroit Three last year

Photos are of General Motors CEO Mary Barra speaking to the Detroit Economic Club at the Renaissance Center, in Detroit, October 28, 2014. (David Guralnick / Detroit News)(Photo: David Guralnick / Detroit News)

General Motors Co. Chairman and CEO Mary Barra was the highest-paid executive in the Detroit Three last year. GM paid Barra $22.58 million in total compensation in 2016, a 21 percent decrease from the $28.59 million the company paid her in 2015.

Ford Motor Co. paid President and CEO Mark Fields $22.1 million in total compensation in 2016; and Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne was paid more than 10.8 million euros (nearly $11.5 million) in compensation in 2016, about the same cash payout as the year before, but falling well-short of 2015 totals that put him at the top of the pack that year and included millions of dollars in stock grants.

Tesla Motors Inc., which this week surpassed Ford in market value for the first time, has not yet released last year’s compensation for its top executives.

In 2015, Tesla CEO and Chairman Elon Musk was offered $37,584 in total compensation, which he did not accept, according to last year’s regulatory filing. Musk was paid $78.2 million in 2012, most of which came from a performance-based option that vested after 10 years. Musk hasn’t taken a salary since then. His next option vests in 2022, at which point he could be paid $1.6 billion.

Barra is the auto industry’s first female CEO. Her pay became an issue after some news outlets — looking at incomplete information — erroneously reported her first year of pay would be about half of what her predecessor, CEO Dan Akerson, made. Barra, 55, has been CEO of GM since mid-January 2014, and in January 2016 added the chairman title.

Her 2016 pay included a $2 million base salary, up from $1.75 million in 2015, and $13 million in stock awards, according to GM’s preliminary filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

GM had a net income of $9.43 billion in 2016, and pre-tax adjusted earnings of $12.5 billion.

The Detroit-based automaker also spent $241,829 on other benefits for Barra, which included travel on a chartered aircraft and a GM-owned plane. That total also included $81,868 for Barra’s security.

Pay for other GM executives includes:

■Charles Stevens, executive vice president and chief financial officer: $7.6 million in total compensation, down from $8.1 million in 2016. His base salary increased to $1.1 million last year, up from $1 million the year before.

■Dan Ammann, president: $10.2 million in total compensation, down from $11.8 million the year before. His base salary increased to $1.45 million, up from $1.2 million the year before. GM also paid $326,555 for Ammann’s security, over $244,000 more than it paid for Barra’s security.

■Mark Reuss, executive vice president of global product development, purchasing and supply chain: $8.4 million in total compensation, down from $10.2 million the year before. His base salary was $1.2 million, up from $1.1 million in 2015.

■Alan Batey, executive vice president and president of GM North America: $6.4 million in total compensation. He was paid $950,000 as a base salary.

Ford and General Motors Co. report their executive salaries differently than Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, which does not include some stock and potential performance-based equity awards.

Fields’ 2016 paycheck is shy of the $23,204,534 that former CEO Alan Mulally made in 2013, his last full year at Ford.

Fields, 56, who became Ford’s president and CEO in 2014, earned a base salary in 2016 of $1,787,500, up $37,500 or 2.1 percent from the year before. His total compensation included a $2,736,000 bonus for meeting performance targets in five different segments of the company.

Marchionne was paid 3.61 million euros in base salary ($3.82 million) and received a nearly 6.3 million euros bonus (worth about $6.89 million when announced and paid a year ago) in 2016

In 2017, Marchionne, 64, is set to receive a bonus of nearly 6.14 million euros (nearly $6.5 million) from Fiat Chrysler, based on his 2016 performance.

Marchionne could see some 6.7 million shares vest by 2019, which is up from 4.32 million because of the Ferrari spin-off and the company selling an ownership stake in RCS MediaGroup SpA. The value of those shares depends on many factors, such as the company meeting certain objectives in its five-year plan, his performance and the stock price.